Page 24 - LEIBY

24 Leiby – Border Smuggler

quickly and within just a couple of minutes his plate was licked
clean.

“Would you like another portion?” Leiby asked, and the boy
nodded eagerly. He downed plate after plate of potato soup,
and it seemed as if his stomach was a bottomless pit. Leiby also
noticed that he had stuffed a number of slices of bread into his
pockets, evidently saving them for later. It was clear that the
boy often went hungry.

Eventually he laid down his spoon and wiped his mouth,
smiling gratefully at Leiby. He glanced around the room and
his eyes lit up as he noticed the mezuzah on the door.

“Are you Jewish?” he asked.

“Of course we are,” Leiby confirmed.

The boy let out a sigh of relief. “I’ve been hiding in the house
of a goy named Ivanov,” he confided. “His wife brought me
here, she said that here there are Jews who would help me.”The
boy looked lonely and terrified. The non-Jewish village woman
who had brought him here had deposited him on the street
and hurriedly disappeared. The Benderovic gangsters8 who had
taken control of the outlying villages had threatened to murder
any farmers who were found sheltering Jews, and she had no
wish to be caught.

“But who are you?” Leiby questioned. He sat near the child and
stroked his dark curls.

“My name is Yosef Lieder, and I come from Lida. We were sent
to the ghetto together with all the Jews and when the Germans
organized an aktzia we hid in a malina9 – Papa, Mama, me, and
my sister Mirushka. Eventually the Germans left, but my father
decided that it was too dangerous to continue hiding in the
ghetto, and that we’d have to find a hiding place in one of the
nearby villages. My father had owned a grocery store before the

8 ĞŶĚĞƌŽǀŝĐ ŐĂŶŐƐƚĞƌƐ ʹ hŬƌĂŝŶŝĂŶ ŶĂƟŽŶĂůƐ
9 Malina ʹ Ă ŐŚĞƩŽ ŚŝĚĞŽƵƚ͘ ƵƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ aktzias Jews hid there for
ƐŚŽƌƚ ƉĞƌŝŽĚƐ ŽĨ ƟŵĞ ƵŶƟů ƚŚĞ ĚĂŶŐĞƌ ŚĂĚ ƉĂƐƐĞĚ͘